Tome of Fire

PROMETHEUS REQUIEM

The hangar gaped like an open wound in the side of the ship, festering with rust and warp corrosion. It belonged to the Glorion, an ancient vessel from the long-dead Kapp Frontier Wars and was just one in a conglomeration of almost a hundred. Ruined cathedra, mashed together in the violent act of joining, jutted alongside broken spires, shattered domes and the cleaved remains of many-tiered decks. The union of once-disparate vessels was as incongruous as the product of their fusion. Now a single drifting mass, such abominations were commonly referred to as ‘hulks’.

The Implacable was an insect compared to this behemoth and its landing stanchions touched down on an area of deck plating capable of harbouring an entire fleet of gunships. Ten armoured figures stepped out from the embarkation ramp. They moved slowly. Not because of the massive Terminator suits they were wearing or because of the inertia of the zero-gravity, nor was it because their boots were mag-locked to the deck plating. They were wary.

Hulks had ever been the province of alien creatures, hiding in the dark forgotten recesses, stirring from a deep-space slumber. But it was more than that. This amalgam, its many-hulled body ravaged by claw marks, colonised by strange bacterial growths and seared by solar wind, had been to the Eye. Spat from the warp like a birth mother expelling its nascent spawn, it had emerged back into the realm of realspace after almost a century’s absence.

‘I can smell the reek of the warp.’ Praetor’s voice came through the comm-feed in Tsu’gan’s helmet. Though he couldn’t see his face, Tsu’gan could tell his sergeant was scowling.

More than smell alone, the hangar walls bore visual evidence of the hulk’s taint. In the glare from the halo-lamps spearing out of his armour, Tsu’gan picked out traceries of void-frozen veins and oddly shaped protuberances. Gaps in the bizarre growths resembled mouths, flash-frozen in distended hunger. The aberrations stained every vertical surface and ended in slurries of fossilised biomass that collected against the edges of the deck.

‘Flamer.’ Praetor’s order was clipped, undercut by barely checked disgust.

Brother Kohlogh stepped out of formation and doused the wall in purifying fire. Like a match held to a stack of oiled timber, the flames raced across the tainted mass, devouring it to the eerie report of sibilant howling, just discernible above the heavy weapon’s roar.

Tsu’gan watched Emek make the sign of Vulkan’s hammer across his breast. None of the Firedrakes did it, but then the Apothecary was not one of them and more superstitious than most. He caught Tsu’gan’s gaze briefly, held it, then looked away as Praetor drove them on. It was obvious he wanted to be off this ship as soon as possible. He had good reason.

The empyrean was a shadow realm, a world overlaid on reality like a dirty film of plastek. Fell creatures swam its tides, given form by fear, envy and a desire for power. They were parasites that preyed on the weaknesses of man. An old word gave them substance. Daemons they were called. No ship, hulk or otherwise, that had plied the warp could ever be wholly untouched by the experience. Daemons and their influence had a way of lingering…

‘Makes your skin crawl, eh, little wyrm?’ asked Hrydor over a closed channel.

Tsu’gan’s jaw clenched and he bit back his anger.

‘Address me as Tsu’gan or brother,’ he hissed.

Hrydor laughed loudly for everyone to hear. A giant, even amongst Terminators, he carried their squad’s heavy weapon, a brutal assault cannon etched with kill-scars.

Praetor sent a crackle of energy up the haft of his thunder hammer to better survey the darkness. It also lit the green of his battle-plate and deepened the shadows in the folds of his drakescale cloak.

‘Keep it down, brother,’ he said.

Hrydor nodded but wasn’t done.

‘Stay eager, little wyrm. You and I shall fight together very soon.’

The magma lakes below Mount Deathfire on Nocturne were cooler than Tsu’gan’s ire at that moment.

Aside from the tainted growths, the hangar was empty.

‘How far to the Proteus?’ asked Praetor.

‘She’s close. I can feel her.’

A flashing rune on Tsu’gan’s retinal display identified the speaker.

Brother-sergeant Nu’mean. His impatience, uncharacteristic of a Salamander, was obvious even in his implacable Terminator suit.

Praetor turned, shifting his bulk.

‘Are you a Librarian now, brother?’

‘I am a Firedrake.’ Nu’mean answered curtly. Not as deep-voiced as Praetor, but with an edge that could cut ceramite. ‘And I know my own ship. She is near.’

He stomped ahead as the already freezing temperature dropped further.

‘Emek,’ Praetor ignored his fellow sergeant for now, ‘how far?’

Unlike his predecessor who’d been all thin-faced cynicism, Emek was optimistic and curious.

After you’ve pulled a few more gene-seeds from your dead and dying brethren, your mood will change, brother, thought Tsu’gan, his voice bitter even inside his head.

Emek was consulting an auspex array built into the gauntlet of his smaller power armour. ‘Based on ship schematics, approximately five hours through the Glorion’s tertiary decks until we reach fusion-point and the Protean’s aft section.’ He looked up from his calculations. ‘That’s dependent on a straight route through the vessel – no encounters, clear terrain and re-establishing gravity.’

‘Soon as we locate an active console you can set to work on that third condition, brother,’ said Prae-tor. ‘The other two we’ll deal with as necessary.’

Every Terminator had a chainfist on his left hand, invaluable when exploring hulks where bulkheads and debris could make progress difficult. That was for condition two.

‘Thermal scans from the Implacable suggest resistance will be light. The xenos are still largely dormant.’

Storm bolters, an assault cannon and the heavy flamer in Nu’mean’s squad dealt with condition one.

‘Then let us hope that remains the case.’ Praetor’s attention switched back to Nu’mean, who’d taken up an advanced position with his squad. For the moment Praetor was in command, but as soon as they reached the Protean the other sergeant would take over. It had been agreed. Nu’mean had his atonement and would bear the responsibility of it alone. It was the Promethean way. ‘You are certain he’s here?’

‘I know it in my blood.’ There was a growl to Nu’mean’s voice. ‘He is here, still inside the ship.’

‘A century drifting the warp tides, he might not have survived.’ Praetor’s normally booming voice softened. ‘We may be searching for a corpse, brother… or something worse.’

Nu’mean let the words hang in the air then stared beyond Praetor, his gaze alighting on Emek.

‘He is alive, held in cryo-stasis just as I left him.’ He paused, about to add something. The hard veneer almost cracked when he turned away again.

Praetor gave a final glance to Emek, flanked by two green bulwarks of armoured ceramite – they were two of Nu’mean’s squad, Mercurion and Gun’dar. Power armour was formidable protection on most battlefields, but this drifting space hulk was no ordinary battlefield.

‘Keep him safe.’ Praetor didn’t bother to hide it in a closed channel. The Apothecary knew the risks. Praetor glared again at Nu’mean.

Subtlety was not a trait that Herculon Praetor held in any great regard. The mission was still his for the moment. His voice was thunderous and commanding as he took the lead, ‘Firedrakes, advance on me.’

The muzzle flare from three storm bolters fired in unison lit the grimace on Praetor’s face as he threw the xenos off his storm shield. Acidic vital fluids hissed against his armour as he crushed the creature against the wall.

The corridor was tight. Pipes and thick cabling hung from the ruptured ceiling where the genestealers had clawed through. Deck grating, half corroded by xeno-blood, clanked underfoot. At least the warp taint was no longer present. At least… it was not visible. Hard gravity from the Glorion’s malfunctioning systems kept the Firedrakes grounded. Recently revived air-scrubbers re-oxygenating the deck allowed Praetor to remove his battle-helm. Suspensor readings in retinal displays showed maximum lift capacity. Manoeuvring was tough. Tsu’gan tasted salt on his lips, his face covered in battle-sweat, secondary heart pumping to cope with the additional physical stresses.

The xenos showed no such difficulty.

Two bounded up the short corridor, jostling for position. Three Terminators faced them – Tsu’gan, his sergeant and Vo’kar – two more including the assault cannon were staggered behind them. Though Hrydor’s heavy weapon was silent, Invictese’s storm bolter barked between the front line’s shoulder plates. Nu’mean’s squad clustered behind them, guarding the rear.

Tsu’gan sent a burst into the creatures, rupturing the ribcage of the leader and ripping off a limb. The second got close enough to leap, its long muscled legs propelling it easily off the deck plate and into the air. The chainfist embedded in its torso cut its screeching to a strangled mewl and the genestealer’s clawing lacked strength and purpose as it raked Tsu’gan’s armour.

‘Good little wyrm!’ said Hrydor. The flare from the storm bolters lit up the corridor like a tongue of fire. Tsu’gan felt their heat. Three xenos exploded against the fusillade. ‘But look, there are more!’

Hrydor gestured with his chainfist. Roughly thirteen xenos corpses lay scattered around the Terminators for no losses or injuries. It was a vanguard, nothing more. The beasts were half slumbering, still not fully out of hibernation. Up ahead, a high-pitched keening presaged another wave.

The genestealers scurrying across the deck were easy kills. They bucked and jerked against the combined fire. Too late, the Firedrakes realised these were just sacrificial. Others – clinging to the ceiling and walls, bodies low to present a smaller target – reached them in force.

Tsu’gan staggered as he took a glancing blow to his battle-helm. The internal display crackled with static for a second then returned. The beasts were fast, much faster than the others. He swept his chainfist around, hoping to connect, but the genestealer had scurried over him and onto his back.

Pain sensors in his suit flared an angry red and Tsu’gan cried out. Flesh hooks from the ’stealer’s maw punched against his armour joints, seeking a weakness. He couldn’t reach to grab it, so thrust backwards instead. A satisfying crunch of bone resounded when he made contact with the wall. Barely recovered, his enhanced body pumping pain-regressing chemicals into his bloodstream, another sprang at him from its perch on the ceiling. In the darkness, despite his occulobe implant, he only just saw it.

Praetor’s thunder hammer shattered it in mid-flight, the electrical discharge shocking the air and illuminating the xenomorph’s death scream like a frozen pict-capture.

‘Firedrakes, advance!’ he boomed, mashing another with a punch of his storm shield.

Staccato bangs of bolter fire told Tsu’gan his brothers were with him as he raked the corridor ahead. Through combined effort, the Firedrakes had almost wiped out the second wave and used the brief respite to gain some ground. A wider corridor section loomed ahead, some kind of maintenance bay with old machinery strewn about like metal carcasses. The extra room allowed Nu’mean’s squad to rank up alongside Praetor’s.

Praetor raised his fist as they fanned out: three in front, sergeants to the centre with two behind, including heavies. ‘Halt here.’

The dying echoes of gunfire faded until a tense silence, undercut by the dulcet movements of the Glorion’s extant systems, resumed.

‘We should proceed,’ said Nu’mean, making his impatience obvious.

Praetor nudged one of the ’stealer corpses over. Feeder tendrils lolled from its mouth cavity like ribbed tongues. Before the sergeant went to his comm-feed he noticed a faint light dying in the creature’s eyes. It could’ve just been an illusion, brought about by the intense conditions of the ship. Praetor activated the feed.

‘Apothecary?’

‘Still here, my lord.’

‘The xenos are done,’ Nu’mean persisted. ‘Why delay?’

‘He’s been waiting for almost a century, brother – a few more hours won’t make any difference,’ Praetor countered. ‘Besides, they are still here. Waiting.’

It was obvious the other sergeant didn’t like it.

Tsu’gan remembered Nu’mean from before when he’d first teleported to Prometheus, the lunar space station and domain of the Firedrakes. The brother-sergeant had been the first to meet him. He had a weathered face with a long scar running down the right side that tugged at his lip and pulled it up into a permanent snarl. The right eye was slightly dimmed, and a small well of black infected the blazing red. A blade of red hair, shaved into an arc, fed across the right hemisphere of his skull. It put Tsu’gan in mind of a streak of flame. Despite the heat of the proving-forge and the gate of fire, the welcome had not been warm. Judging by Nu’mean’s present demeanour, the years inbetween had not softened him.

Praetor turned his halo-lamps to full glare and aimed them at the corridor section ahead. Ragged hoses hung down like vipers. Somewhere out of sight a steam valve vented. According to Emek, they were maybe an hour from the fusion-point and the Protean.

Like his battle-brothers, Tsu’gan followed his sergeant’s example. At first, he saw nothing except ravaged metal, broken pipes and cables like spewed intestines rudely lit in harsh magnesium-white. Then something stirred at the edge of the cone of light, creeping slowly along the penumbra.

‘In Vulkan’s name!’ Tsu’gan roared and his battle cry became a chorus with his brothers.

Like limpets attached to the hull of an ancient ship, the genestealers broke off from the walls and fell into a loping run. At the same time the grates in the ceiling crashed down and a steady stream of creatures poured out.

As Tsu’gan swung his storm bolter around, he was reminded of Nocturnean lava-ants mustering from their hive to repel an invader. Except here the lava-ants were larger than a man and their nest was a rotten hulk floating in the depths of space.

Every shell struck a xenos body. Limbs and gore exploded outwards in a series of ghastly blossoms, but the genestealers kept on coming.

‘Something drives them!’ Tsu’gan snarled, and went to take a back step when he felt a pauldron locked against his, stopping him.

Praetor was beside him, a ceramite rock in the face of the advancing alien tide.

‘Only forwards, brother. Resist. Our will is greater.’ Then he turned to another Firedrake. ‘Hrydor, give us some breathing room.’

Moving from Praetor’s right, Hrydor stepped forwards and triggered the assault cannon.

The air was instantly filled with the whine of its spinning barrel, spitting high-velocity shells at a phenomenal rate. Strafing left and right, Hrydor rejoiced loudly, singing litanies of the Promethean Creed as he eviscerated clusters of genestealers starting to clog the corridor.

‘Seems we’ve stirred the nest, brother-sergeant,’ he said.

Tsu’gan heard Praetor mutter. ‘And I know of only one way to cleanse it… Nu’mean.’

The other sergeant nodded, gesturing to Brother Kohlogh.

‘Burn it!’ cried Nu’mean, and the Firedrake brought his heavy flamer to bear.

Liquid promethium ignited on contact with the weapon’s burner, engulfing the corridor section ahead.

Despite the heat, some of the xenos were still determined to attack.

‘Ve’kyt, Mercurion!’

Two more Firedrakes stepped to at Nu’mean’s order, exploding the flame-wreathed bodies staggering from the conflagration with precise bolter rounds. In a few more moments, it was done.

The sounds of screaming persisted long after all the genestealers were dead, rendered to ash in the heat of the flamer’s irresistible blaze. Smoke palled the air like a death shroud.

‘What’s that noise?’ asked Emek. He’d moved up to the rear rank and no longer needed the comm-feed to be heard.

‘Have you ever broiled crustacid or chitin?’ asked Hrydor, allowing the barrel on his assault cannon to spin and cool before shutting it down.

The Apothecary shook his head.

‘It’s air, brother,’ Tsu’gan snapped, a little impatient at Emek’s apparent naivety, ‘escaping from between the joins in the carapace.’

‘Well, little wyrm, it appears there is more to you than wrath and thunder.’

Tsu’gan wanted to smash the front of Hrydor’s battle-helm into his face but resisted. Instead, he walked slowly to Praetor who pressed his hand against the wall while two of Nu’mean’s squad checked the way ahead was actually now clear.

‘Brother-sergeant?’

‘Do you know what I feel when I touch the wall of this ship?’

Praetor’s eyes were hard like granite. Since joining the Firedrakes, Tsu’gan had seen a different side to the sergeant. On Scoria, fighting against the orks he had been almost ebullient, bombastic. Now, he was dour and withdrawn. N’keln dying on the cusp of victory had changed him, just as Kadai’s murder had changed Tsu’gan. Dead captains had a way of doing that to their fellow brothers-in-arms, even those not of the same company.

‘I feel sorrow.’ Praetor frowned. ‘Something lives inside this ship, in its every fibre. It is neither Salamander nor genestealer, nor any physical thing I can touch or slay.’ The sergeant kept his voice low. ‘That bothers me, greatly. Place your hand against the wall, brother, and feel it,’ he added, stepping aside.

Tsu’gan’s reply was barely a whisper. ‘I do not wish to, my lord.’

On their previous mission to the shrine world of Sepulchre IV the Firedrakes had faced an almost invulnerable foe. Fighting it had cost lives: brothers. The weight of that loss, futile as it had been, hung around Praetor’s neck as tangibly as the gorget of his armour.

‘Very well,’ he said. His gaze lingered on Tsu’gan a moment longer before he lumbered away to convene with Nu’mean.

‘Pain is everywhere, brother,’ he added, his back turned. ‘Embrace it in the fires of war or run and let it be your master. I can’t make that choice for you.’ Then he was gone, leaving Tsu’gan to ponder his wisdom.

The fusion-point was where an old enginarium deck had breached what sensors and ship schematics suggested was the Protean’s medi-deck. That was good. It meant the cryo-stasis chamber would be close by upon entry. Not so good was the several thousand kilograms of debris preventing a direct burn, hull-to hull, through to the next vessel.

Such a problem might prove an impasse to common explorators or even fellow Space Marines. Terminators had no such issue.

‘Heavies guard the rear,’ said Praetor, ‘Everyone else… cut her open.’

The sound of revving chainfists ground the air before the two squads went to work hewing and sawing.

‘Apothecary, stand clear,’ he added. ‘Don’t risk your cargo, brother.’

Emek nodded, checking the vial embedded in his gauntlet. The chemical solution sloshed benignly within.

‘If we can locate a blast door or even a sealed bulkhead, I might be able to unlock it from here. It’ll make our progress swifter.’

Praetor nodded to the Apothecary before wading in with his thunder hammer.

Emek looked again to the vial. A small injector needle on the end would guarantee delivery of the solution, which was red and faintly luminous. Emek knew little of its origin, but he knew it was potent. Scarcely fifty millilitres resided in a clear armourplas tube the size of the Apothecary’s thumb.

So much, resting on so little a thing.

They found the door. It was a disused service hatch in the Protean’s aft that led to a short maintenance conduit and the ship’s medi-deck. Only wide enough for one Terminator at a time, entry was fairly slow. It did give Tsu’gan and the others first in the line a chance to reconnoitre their surroundings though.

Unlike the Glorion, the old Salamanders strike cruiser still maintained a flickering power grid. Lume-lamps cut up the dark in trembling flashes, revealing a gloomy interior. Gunmetal was scorched black in places from an old fire, long dead. Soot carpeted the deck underfoot and shifted like a torpid sea every time one of the Firedrakes moved. Ash clung to rafters and crossbeams like grey fungus.

They had emerged into a large, hexagonal room. Five of its sides branched off and terminated in a console, making the room some kind of hub. There were glyphs and icons crafted into the walls. Sigils of the Salamanders – the flame, the serpent and the drake’s head – glittered wanly against the Terminators’ halo-beams. The light above was hexagonal too and its design echoed outwards concentrically.

Emek was poring over a green-lit console as Tsu’gan approached him.

‘Don’t wander too far.’

‘You worry too much, brother. I can look to my own protection.’

Tsu’gan snorted derisively. ‘Did the Ignean breed that insolence into you?’

The Apothecary had once been one of Dak’ir’s troopers, the one that Tsu’gan referred to as the Ignean. A snarl at the thought of the former sergeant sprang unbidden onto the Firedrake’s face.

Emek declined to answer. Even now, engaged with new assignments, there was still acrimony between the battle-brothers from the old tactical squads.

‘What are you doing?’ Tsu’gan snapped when he realised the Apothecary wouldn’t be baited.

‘Checking emergency systems are online.’

‘And?’

Emek turned. ‘Even after a century, everything seems to be working. The cryo-stasis chamber is intact. Ships like the Protean were built to last.’ He paused, looking Tsu’gan in the eye. ‘Does it annoy you that I am privy to elements of this mission that you are not?’

Tsu’gan clenched a fist and the servos in his gauntlet seemed to growl.

‘Your curiosity will get you killed one day, brother. Or perhaps worse… perhaps it will dent your optimistic spirit and break you.’

Tsu’gan was walking away when Emek spoke to his back.

‘Is that before or after you’ve burned yourself to ash in the solitorium?’

‘What do you know of it?’ Tsu’gan stopped, and snapped at the darkness.

‘When I took on Fugis’s mantle, I took on his notes and data from the Apothecarion too. Your name is mentioned.’

Tsu’gan appeared to stiffen, but then Emek’s voice softened. ‘There’s no shame in grief, but it’s dangerous if channelled inwards.’

Tsu’gan didn’t turn, though he wanted to. Finding out what Emek knew of his pain addiction would have to wait – something else had caught his attention.

‘What do you know of grief?’ he muttered instead, and walked over to an archway leading from the room into a wide gallery.

The long chamber was lined with doors on either side. It looked like some kind of isolation ward for patients receiving intensive treatment. The floor was partially tiled, some of the white smeared grey and cracked or chipped away. The doors too, plasteel with a single porthole window, were white. Some carried faded marks that in the half-light looked almost brown or black.

A smell, like ozone and burning meat, made Tsu’gan’s nose wrinkle. The dull report of his footfalls thumped in time with his heart. A faint tapping became a chorus to these louder beats, like a finger on glass. Tsu’gan followed it. His auto-senses came back with no threats. Gravity and oxygen were at stable and acceptable levels. All was well on the Protean. And yet…

It was coming from one of the doors. An image flashed across the surface of Tsu’gan’s memory but discerning it was like grasping mental smoke. His heart quickened. He approached the door, closer with every step. He realised he was reluctant, and chided himself for being a weakling. And yet…

Tsu’gan’s retinal display was still reporting zero threats. No heat-traces, no kinetics, no gas or power surges. The long chamber was clean. And yet…

He reached the door, fingers to his chainfist outstretched and probing towards the glass. Tsu’gan was a few centimetres away when the lights flickered and he gazed upwards at the lume-lamps. When he looked back a face regarded him through the porthole. Partially dissolved flesh and sloughed muscle revealed more of a skull than any recognisable human visage. And yet, Tsu’gan knew exactly who it was.

‘Ko’tan…’ His dead captain glared at him through the glass. Tsu’gan was horrified when he saw bony fingers reaching up to match the position of his own, as if he were staring into some grotesque mirror and not glass at all.

Another smell quashed the stink of burning meat and melta discharge. There was heat and sulphur, the sound of cracking magma and the redolence of smoke. A hazy figure was reflected in the glass behind him.

Red armour the hue of blood, festooned with horns and scale…

Dragon Warrior…

Tsu’gan whirled around as fast as his cumbersome suit allowed, triggering his storm bolter as he let out a roar of anguish.

Praetor parried the gun aside, directing the explosive salvo harmlessly into the ground.

‘Brother!’ he urged.

Tsu’gan saw only foes. Heat shimmered off the Dragon Warrior’s armour, hazing his outline. These were the renegades who had killed Ko’tan Kadai. How they came to be upon this ship mattered not. All that concerned Tsu’gan was the manner of their deaths at his hands – the bloodier the better. He gave up on the storm bolter and activated his chainfist instead. More were coming. He could hear them, pounding towards him across the deck. He had to finish this quickly.

Praetor braced the chainteeth against his shield. Sparks cascaded down onto his face as he deflected the blow upwards.

‘Brother!’ he repeated.

Spat through clenched teeth, it was a declaration of disbelief as much as it was anger.

Tsu’gan pressed the churning blades against the shield, his rage lending him the strength to overpower his enemy. The bastard was grinning – he could see fangs beneath the mouth grille of the Dragon Warrior’s battle-helm.

I’ll rip them out…

Then the red fog before his eyes faded and Praetor was revealed. A moment’s distraction was all that the sergeant needed to land a blow from the thunder hammer’s haft against Tsu’gan’s chest. A jolt of energy shocked the Firedrake and put him on one knee.

The whine of the chainfist died and Praetor let his hammer fall to his side with it. But then he moved in close, ramming the cleaved edge of his storm shield under Tsu’gan’s chin and bringing him to his feet.

‘Are you with us?’ Praetor asked.

Tsu’gan’s tongue was paralysed. The world around him was only just making sense again. The others were looking on, weapons primed.

Praetor pressed the shield up harder, lifting Tsu’gan’s head. ‘Are you with us?’

‘Yes…’ It was a rasp, but the sergeant heard and believed it.

Nu’mean was not so quick to stand down. He levelled his storm bolter.

‘It’s finished,’ Praetor told him, stepping into the other sergeant’s firing line.

‘The warp–’

‘Infests this ship, this entire hulk, Nu’mean. It’s done.’ Praetor ushered Tsu’gan away to be cursorily examined by Emek. A side glance at Hrydor told the Firedrake to go with him and keep watch.

Nu’mean lowered his weapon.

‘How can you be sure?’ he asked, when Tsu’gan had moved away.

Praetor leaned in close.

‘Because I saw things too,’ he whispered. ‘This floating wreck is alive with the sentience of the warp. Something is channelling it, into our minds. Tsu’gan was taken off guard, that’s all.’

Nu’mean fashioned a snarl. ‘He is weak, and not to be trusted.’

‘He passed through the gate of fire and endured the proving-forge – he is one of us!’ Praetor asserted. ‘Can you say this mission, this ship, has not influenced your behaviour in some way? I have seen it plainly but will you admit it, Nu’mean?’

Nu’mean didn’t answer him. He eyed Tsu’gan as their Apothecary conducted a bio-scan instead. By now the other Firedrakes were securing the chamber, checking each of the cells in turn and the hub annexe. ‘You made a mistake with that one, brother.’

‘There was no mistake. Guilt masters him for now. Know this: his destiny is with the Firedrakes. I won’t abandon him–’

Nu’mean spat back with anger. ‘As I abandoned others, is that what you are driving at, brother?’

Praetor moved in close. ‘Get a hold of yourself, or I shall assume command of this mission. Are we clear on that, sergeant?’

Though he simmered with rage, Nu’mean conceded and gave the slightest nod before stalking away.

Praetor let him go, using the few seconds to gird his own emotions. He looked back at the portholes that lined the infirmary and his ire bled away, replaced by regret.

‘I won’t abandon him,’ he repeated solemnly to himself.

There were faces staring at him from the portholes that only he could see. Gathimu and Ankar, slain on Sepulchre IV; Namor and Clyten, killed on Scoria, and a dozen others whose names blended into memory but were still his charges.

‘We’ve already lost so many.’

‘It is nothing, little wyrm…’ Hrydor was at Tsu’gan’s shoulder as Emek examined him for injury. After releasing the pressure clasps, the Apothecary then carefully removed Tsu’gan’s helmet. Immediately, the unfiltered atmosphere washed in. Despite the years, the air still stank of ammonia and counterseptic. The sanitised aroma made Tsu’gan’s skin itch and he found himself yearning for the touch of fire. But there was no rod, no brander-priest’s iron to slake his masochistic urge.

‘What is “nothing”? Speak plainly, brother. You sound like a Dark Angel,’ Tsu’gan shot back venomously.

‘Hold still,’ said Emek, seizing Tsu’gan’s chin and shining a light in his eyes. They burned suddenly brighter. He reviewed the readings on his bio-scanner, logging the data for later analysis.

‘I am myself.’ Tsu’gan glared at the Apothecary, daring him to arrive at any other conclusion. The memory of Kadai’s face still lingered like an old dream in his subconscious though, and he wondered what had triggered it.

‘Physically, I can discern no adverse effects. Mentally, I cannot–’

‘Then release me.’ Tsu’gan jerked his chin away and took back his helmet.

Emek left with a parting remark. ‘Your demeanour certainly remains as amenable as usual.’

‘Are you sure you’re a warrior, Emek?’ Tsu’gan sneered, before ramming on his battle-helm. The pressure clamps cinched into place automatically as Tsu’gan went to Hrydor. ‘Now, explain yourself.’

The other Firedrake didn’t look intimidated. If anything, he was pensive. ‘The bulk and the strain of the great armour you wear – they are difficult burdens, little wyrm. It once belonged to Imaan. His aegis is woven into that of the suit.’

‘I know that. I was at the ritual. I stood before the proving-forge and crossed the gate of fire. I carry Imaan’s icon upon my flesh alongside many other honour scars, given unto me for the deeds I performed in battle. It’s the reason I am beside you now. I am Zek Tsu’gan, former brother-sergeant of Third Company and now Firedrake. I am not your little wyrm!’

Hrydor looked blankly at his battle-brother for a moment before laughing loudly.

‘I can handle the suit and the mission,’ Tsu’gan protested, earning a backwards glance from Praetor. It would be a few more minutes until they were done searching and securing the gallery. Then they could move on. Tsu’gan had that long to re-prepare himself. He lowered his tone in response to his sergeant’s scowl. ‘I saw… something. A relic of the past, nothing more. Old ship, old ghosts – that’s all it is.’

Hrydor became suddenly serious. ‘Perhaps you’re right.’ His voice took on a brooding tone. ‘On Lykaar, before I became a Drake, I fought with the Wolves of Grìmhildr Skanefeld. It was a bitter campaign warred over winter-fall, and the ice upon Lykaar was thick. We Salamanders brought fire to counter the ice; the Wolves brought fury. It was a good match. Greenskins had invaded the planet, making slaves of its people and siphoning from its promethium wells like common pirates.’

Tsu’gan interrupted. ‘What’s the purpose of all this?’ he hissed. ‘If you must watch me, then do it in silence and spare us both this doggerel. Allow me to re-consecrate my arms and armour without your endless chatter.’

‘Listen and you may just hear the purpose of it, brother.’

Yes, thought Tsu’gan, the Fenrisians have much to account for. They too are fond of overlong sagas.

‘We were few,’ Hrydor continued, ‘but the orks and their stunted cousins had been fighting indentured men with picks and ice-nailers. They were ill prepared to face Space Marines. But, there was something we did not know. A creature, a kraken, slumbered under the ice. Our warring disturbed it and brought it forth.’ Hrydor’s voice darkened. ‘It took us by surprise. I was among the first. Before my bolter could speak, the beast seized me, swept me up in its tentacles. A lesser man would’ve been crushed, but my armour and Emperor-given fortitude saved me. Had Grìmhildr not intervened, casting his rune axe to sever the creature’s hold, I doubt I’d have survived. Others on the field that day were not so lucky.’

‘A stirring tale, I am sure,’ said Tsu’gan, sarcastically, ‘but we are ready to depart.’

‘As always, you fail to see what is before you, Tsu’gan,’ Hrydor replied. ‘I see the kraken still. I will it to find me in my solitorium chamber, to face it and conquer it.’

Tsu’gan didn’t move, still not understanding.

Hrydor rested a hand on his pauldron. ‘Harbouring ghosts doesn’t make you unique. All warriors have them, but it is the manner of how we deal with them that defines us as sons of Vulkan.’

Tsu’gan shrugged Hrydor’s hand away and went to find Praetor. He was eager to move on. ‘Whatever you say, brother.’

Having dispersed around the infirmary, the Firedrakes were forming back into squads and preparing to advance again. Hrydor was about to fall in when he caught a glimpse of something slithering away in his peripheral vision. His auto-senses came back with nothing and when he tried to follow it, the thing, whatever it was, had gone. Only the scent of the ocean, of ice and the deep reek of something ancient and long forgotten, remained.

‘It’s nothing,’ Hrydor said to himself. The ship had begun to affect them all. ‘Just an old ghost.’

According to the ship schemata, following the medi-deck’s south-east access conduit would lead them first to an emergency hangar and then to the cryo-stasis chamber. After reviewing the other options in the infirmary, this was determined the most expedient route and therefore sanctioned by Nu’mean as their best method of approach. Though it mattered little to the other sergeant, who’d become increasingly driven ever since they’d boarded the Protean, Praetor had concurred with this assessment. He led his squad separately to Nu’mean’s, this time taking the rearmost position, whilst the other sergeant had the scent and the lead.

‘Steady your pace, brother. The ship is badly damaged and may not stand up to such rigours.’ Praetor said through the comm-feed.

Nu’mean replied on the same closed channel. ‘It’s not your conscience, though, is it, Praetor?’

‘You’ll make less ground if–’ A flash of something in the shadows of the access conduit – which was long, narrow and badly lit – made Praetor stop. ‘All squads, halt.’

A chorus of clunking feet gave way to the low murmurs of the ship as the Firedrakes stopped.

‘What is it? ’Stealers?’ Nu’mean sounded irritated.

Praetor’s sensors came back empty. If the xenos were present, they were invisible to all mundane methods of perception.

‘What’s happening here…?’ he whispered to himself. He noticed Hrydor eyeing the shadows keenly as well.

‘Are we safe to proceed or not? I’m getting nothing on my scanners,’ said Nu’mean.

Praetor looked at the Firedrake to his left. ‘Tsu’gan?’

Tsu’gan had his eyes fixed forwards. He kept his voice low. ‘I can smell burning flesh and ozone.’

Nor any physical thing I can touch or slay. Praetor’s own words came back to him. ‘Give me the status of the cryo-chamber.’

There was a pause as Emek checked his data.

‘Fully functional, my lord.’

‘Proceed or not?’ Nu’mean didn’t bother to mask his impatience.

Praetor hesitated. The sealed doors of the emergency hangar were less than a hundred metres away. Nothing but darkness ahead of them.

Something wasn’t right, but what choice did they have?

‘Lead on, Nu’mean.’

The hangar was massive. Several bays, consisting of antechambers, refuelling stations and maintenance pads, comprised the vast space. The bulk of it, however, was taken up by the landing zone itself, which sat directly under a segmented, adamantium-reinforced ceiling. There was evidence of force-shielding too, a last failsafe to keep out the ravages of realspace when the roof to the chamber was open to the void. Six vessels were in dock, all Thunderhawk variants with stripped-down weapon systems, sacrificed for greater troop capacity. They were arrayed, one per docking pit, in two rows of three, noses angled inwards so the line of the ships crossed at diagonals and pointed towards the approaching Firedrakes.

Unlike the other doors in the Protean, Emek had been unable to open the one to the emergency hangar via its external console. They’d had to breach it. The air inside had escaped like a death rattle. Suit sensors revealed it was heavy in carbon dioxide and nitrogen.

The modified gunships were not alone. The dead kept them company.

‘This is no gunship hangar, it’s a morgue,’ said Hrydor, panning his suit lamps into some of the darker recesses.

Skeletons in scraps of uniform – some in fatigues, others wearing what was left of their robes – were clustered against the dust-clogged landing stanchions of the vessels in dock. A few were strewn in the open, rigor mortis having curled their limbs grotesquely. Some carried lasguns and other small arms, or once had. There were other weapons, too, of non-Imperial design.

Nu’mean showed no respect for the dead, ploughing straight into the room, intent on crossing the four hundred metres of the hangar deck to the cryostasis chamber beyond as quickly as possible.

I’ve waited a century for this.

‘Move out. We can do nothing for–’ He stopped short when his boots brushed a corpse he had not expected to see.

‘Xenos?’ Tsu’gan saw it too, noticed several alien bodies in fact. He recognised the lithe forms and segmented armour of the eldar. They were less badly decomposed than the humans, resembling desiccated corpses rather than fleshless skeletons. The eldar were grey and shrunken, their eyes dark hollows and their hair thin like gossamer. Some wore helmets of a conical design with angled eye slits to match their alien physiognomy.

Emek stooped by one of the bodies. Wiping away a veneer of dust, he found a strange sigil he didn’t recognise. ‘Some kind of advanced warrior caste? What were they doing here?’

Praetor appraised the scene. ‘Fighting against us at first then fighting for their lives. There are claw marks here in this wall, too large and broad for any of these bodies.’

He shared an uneasy glance with Nu’mean.

‘There is little time,’ the other sergeant muttered in a small voice.

Swathes of diffuse light, scything through the dust-fogged air from above, flickered once and died. The power cut out, plunging the room into sudden and total darkness.

Tsu’gan felt his massively armoured body start to rise. Gravity, as well as the lights, had failed.

Lances of magnesium-white from their halo-lamps stabbed into the gloom, criss-crossing as the Terminators began to float around. Despite their bulk, they were lifting steadily. So too were the gunships. Untethered in their docking pits, the Thunderhawks rose as if in a slow-motion launch, like heavyweight dirigibles set loose on a skirling wind. Silently they pulled free of their landing stations, the slightest change in the air influencing their laboured trajectory.

Tsu’gan was trying to engage the mag-clamps on his boots but a system failure message scrolled across his retinal display in icon-code.

‘Mag-locks are down,’ he growled to his brothers. The lances of light issuing from his suit flickered intermittently. ‘Halo-lamps failing too.’ A final burst before the light died completely lit the broadside of a Thunderhawk, groaning towards him like a gunmetal berg.

‘Vulkan’s anv– gnnrr!’ He crashed into the side of the vessel and rebounded. The impact was harder than expected, and his body railed against it painfully.

‘Steer clear of the gunships. Use your proximity sensors.’ Nu’mean’s warning came too late for a rueful Tsu’gan.

‘Expel gas from your pneumatics for guidance until locking cords are fixed,’ he added.

Tsu’gan was already spiralling, waiting until he was more or less upright before evacuating a portion of the gas that fed some of the systems in his suit: oxygen, propulsion, motion – they were all vital to a lesser or greater degree but had a certain level of redundancy that made voiding a small amount of them non-critical.

In a matter of seconds, ghost-like plumes of gas were venting across the chamber as the Firedrakes fought to organise themselves. One of the drifting gunships collided with another of its fleet and the report was deafening. It didn’t prevent Tsu’gan from hearing Hrydor cry out, though.

‘The beast! I see it! Engaging!’ A burst of assault cannon fire shredded the air, lighting up the dark with muzzle flare. It sent Hrydor surging backwards, where he spun and struck one of the chamber walls.

‘In Vulkan’s name,’ he drawled, still groggy from the impact, and triggered the cannon again.

‘Cease and desist. Power down – all weapons!’ Praetor was floating towards him as fast as he could while staying out of Hrydor’s deadly fire arc.

Tsu’gan was close by too and moved to assist. He could hear his sergeant muttering.

‘Leave me, brothers. Leave me. You are at Vulkan’s side, whose fire beats in my breast…’

He had no idea who Praetor was talking to. The rest of the Firedrakes were dispersed around the chamber. Some were trying to attach locking cords to anything stable. Others were acting… strangely. A rash of reports came over the comm-feed in rapid succession.

‘…cannot move… my armour… like stone…‘

‘…systems failing… oxygen tainted…‘

‘…xenos! ’Stealers in the hold! Permission to engage…’

The last one Tsu’gan recognised as Nu’mean.

‘All dead… abandon ship… all hands… dead…my brothers…’

Emek, who Tsu’gan caught a glimpse of in the corner of his eye, was disappearing below, heading for something on the deck but otherwise faring much better than the heavier Terminators. He was also one of the few unaffected by whatever was assailing them.

Then he saw him.

Face a patchwork of scar tissue; eyes crimson-lidded and burning with hate; armour of red and black with scales swathing the battle-plate; horned pauldrons and long vermilion claws upon his gauntlets. There was no mistaking it.

It was Nihilan.

The leader of the Dragon Warriors was here and his thrice-damned warp-craft was afflicting them all. Tsu’gan would cleanse the Protean of the renegades. He would end them all.

Nihilan’s lips were moving. A voice like cracked parchment resonated inside Tsu’gan’s head.

‘I fear nothing! Nothing!’ he spat back against the accusation only he could hear.

The renegade smiled, baring tiny fangs.

‘I’ll slay you now, sorcerer…’ Tsu’gan sneered, aiming his storm bolter towards his hated enemy.

Tsu’gan stopped dead. His weapon, his gauntlet and vambrace, his entire arm…

‘No…’

So wretched was his dismay that he could barely give it voice.

Armour of red and black covered Tsu’gan’s body, usurping the familiar Salamanders green. Small flecks of dust cascaded through the cracks in the joints as he felt his skin shedding like a serpent’s beneath it. The reek of copper filled his nostrils, emanating from his own body. He knew that stink. It haunted his dreams with the promise of blood and prophesied treachery. Tsu’gan’s battle-helm was no longer fashioned into the image of drake: it was bare and came to a stub-nosed snout rendered in bone. Skulls hung from bloody chains wrapped around his body.

‘Arghh!’ His anguish was louder this time as a Thunderhawk floated by, obscuring Nihilan from view for a moment. On its flank a face was impossibly reflected. Tsu’gan beheld his form and saw Gor’ghan there instead, the renegade that had slain his captain. It was he, he was it. Failure. Murderer.

The gunship passed. Nihilan was laughing, standing on the deck below.

Tsu’gan clawed his way to the sorcerer, grasping whatever he could to propel himself, using up the pneumatic pressure in his suit.

A pair of clashing gunships narrowly missed him, but Tsu’gan barely noticed in his determination to reach Nihilan. Around him, his brothers struggled against their own phantoms. Hrydor’s belligerent wailing became as white noise. Tsu’gan ignored it all. They didn’t matter. A glancing blow struck his pauldron, resonating agony through the suit that he bit down and endured. Only vengeance mattered.

A life for a life. Those were the words he’d used to justify murder.

Tsu’gan came close enough to reach his prey.

Locking hands around the renegade’s neck, he squeezed.

‘Laugh now, bastard! Laugh now!’

And Nihilan did. He laughed as blood spilled from his mouth, as the veins burst on his forehead, as his neck was slowly crushed.

Emek’s voice broke through the veil that had fallen across the chamber and across the Firedrakes.

‘Restoring power now. Brace yourselves.’

Gravity returned along with the lights.

The Terminators fell. So too did the gunships, like asteroids from the sky.

A piece of Thunderhawk fuselage missed Tsu’gan by less than a metre. Chunks of debris broken off from the gunship’s body during the impact rained against his armour, but he weathered it. In his hands, he was holding a corpse. Its neck was crushed and when he loosened his fevered grip, the head fell off.

Tsu’gan let the wretched body of a dead serf go. Disgust became relief as he saw the reassuring green of his battle-plate. The hallucination had passed. He was himself again, although the trauma of it still lingered as if waiting to be rekindled.

‘What happened?’

Praetor was releasing his hold on Hrydor, who had also recovered but was shaken by his experiences, when he answered.

‘There is something aboard this ship. Something kept quiescent by its systems,’ he admitted. ‘Like a healthy body rejects foreign invaders, so too does this vessel.’

‘How is that possible, brother-sergeant? It’s just a ship.’

Nu’mean came up alongside him. The Firedrakes were converging, finding strength in proximity and all wanting to know what the phenomenon was plaguing the corridors of the Protean. Mercifully, the Terminators had escaped being crushed to death by the plummeting Thunderhawks.

‘A ship that has been to the warp.’ He regarded Praetor. ‘Its stench is redolent with every rotation of the life support systems. And that is not all.’

The moment was pregnant with anticipation, as if a terrible revelation was at hand. In the end, it was Praetor that broke the silence.

‘Seeing will make an explanation easier.’

‘Seeing what?’ asked Hrydor, his composure returning. So powerful, so mentally invasive had their ordeals been that an ordinary man would be rendered a gibbering wreck. As it was, Space Marines were hewn of sterner material and found their faculties stressed but were otherwise not lastingly affected.

‘In the cryo-stasis chamber,’ said Nu’mean. ‘We go there now. Come on.’ He was leading them out across the bay, now trashed with the wreckage of the downed Thunderhawks and littered with small fires, when Emek spoke up.

‘Something on the power fluctuation readings is wrong,’ he said to no one in particular. The Apothecary was standing before the room’s main operational console and had accessed a data stream concerning the recent power outage.

‘It wasn’t caused by a sporadic energy surge?’ asked Praetor.

Emek turned.

‘No, my lord. The power from the ship’s systems was diverted to another section. It looks like it was used to open a previously sealed bulkhead door.’

‘Genestealers don’t do such things. They nest, confined to whatever area they’ve colonised. It’s not in their nature to explore,’ said Nu’mean.

Tsu’gan stepped forwards into the circle that had developed between the two sergeants and the Apothecary. His tone was mildly annoyed.

‘Meaning what, exactly?’

Praetor answered without looking at him. His eyes were on the distant blast door and the way ahead to the cryo-stasis chamber.

‘It means we are not alone on this ship. Someone else has boarded the Protean.’

The rest of the journey to the cryo-stasis chamber was conducted in silence. There was no way of knowing who or what else was aboard the Protean or their relative location to the Firedrakes. They exercised extreme caution now. Every junction, every alcove was checked and double-checked.

It took them several minutes, through several tracts of closely confined corridors, before they reached the area of the ship designated for cryo-stasis. A four-way junction led up to the chamber. The way behind them, they knew. Turning left and right were another two corridors. According to Emek, the right as the Firedrakes faced it went to a bank of saviour pods. The left went deeper into the Protean and a maintenance sub-deck. A short strip of corridor approximately a metre long continued ahead and brought them to the cryo-stasis chamber itself.

The room was heavily locked down. An almost impervious bulkhead door cordoned it off and kept it sealed from idle explorers. Formerly, the Protean had been Nu’mean’s ship. The brother-sergeant possessed the access codes that would open up the chamber and reveal whatever it was they had ventured this far for, and with an Apothecary in tow.

The bulkhead retracted into the thick corridor walls on either side, slipping into previously unseen recesses that closed themselves off once the procedure was complete.

Cold air, charged with liquid nitrogen mist from inside the chamber, beckoned them closer. The room was not especially large or remarkable. It was square and held twenty banks of clear, cylindrical coffin-like receptacles capable of housing a Space Marine in full armour. This was where crew-members could go during a long space journey. It was also a place to keep the badly wounded until a space station or dock could be reached which had superior medical facilities to those of the cruiser.

At that moment, as the Firedrakes entered and dispersed around the room, it had but one resident.

‘We didn’t bring you here to save anyone, Brother Emek,’ said Praetor as he stood before the only occupied cryo-tank.

Within, a crystallised frost veneering the glass, was an alien figure. Peaceful, as if in death, its helmet had been removed. The eldar’s almond-shaped eyes were closed. Its long angular face was androgynous and oddly symmetrical. It wore robes over segmented armour inscribed with peculiar, alien runes. Hands folded over its chest, it took on the semblance of a bizarre, sleeping child, disturbing and beguiling at the same time.

‘No, not a saviour at all,’ uttered Emek, regarding the serum within his gauntlet with fresh understanding. ‘I am here as an executioner.’

‘So now you know,’ Nu’mean broke in, unwilling to wait a moment longer. Pipes fed down into the cryotank, pumping in the solutions and gases needed to keep the subject in suspended animation. It also had a console, as they all did, which controlled the tank’s operation. A small port, ringed invitingly by brass, enabled additions to be made to the liquid nitrogen amalgam and the fluids that kept the occupant of the tank alive.

Praetor put his hand on Nu’mean’s shoulder.

‘Prepare him for what must be done. We will guard the entrance. If these interlopers are close…’ He let the implication hang in the air for a moment, before ordering the other Firedrakes out, leaving Emek and Nu’mean alone with the frozen xenos.

Tsu’gan retired from the scene reluctantly, eager to know just why this one alien was so important and why they hadn’t simply thrust chainfists through the glass and killed it without all the needless ceremony.

‘Death to the alien,’ he spat under his breath as he was leaving.

‘The nerve agent will render the creature brain-dead,’ Nu’mean explained. ‘It is virulent and fast acting but must be applied through the brass receptor port.’ He gestured to the ring on the console.

‘I had thought my mission here was to revivify one of our lost brothers,’ said Emek, unaware of his impropriety and eyeing the still, alien body of the eldar. He knew a little of the race and recognised it as a farseer, some kind of eldar witch. ‘Its psychic emanations have been affecting us since we boarded the Protean.’

‘Yes,’ Nu’mean answered calmly, rarely, now at peace with closure so close at hand. ‘Warp exposure has bonded him to the ship, for it is a he. Praetor felt it, so too did I but didn’t voice it. The cryo-process is the only thing keeping the wretch down. Without it, even the slightest breach, we would be exposed to his witchery. I lost over three thousand hands on this ship to capture this creature. Cruel fate threw us into a warpstorm just as his xenos kin fought to free him. I could do nothing for the men and women of this vessel. I lost battle-brothers, too. My order to curtail the evacuation condemned them all.’

Even with all the years now having passed, all those lives… all the ones the Salamanders had sworn to protect, were felt keenly by Nu’mean. A prisoner of war the farseer might no longer be, but he was still an enemy.

Emek’s posture hardened noticeably. ‘What must we do to kill it?’

Nu’mean began the procedure to open up the receptor port for the vial. He removed his battle-helm to do it, to better see and manipulate the controls.

‘It will take only a moment. Prepare the vial,’ he said.

Emek ejected it from his gauntlet and engaged the syringe at the end.

‘Ready, my lord.’

‘Almost there…’ Nu’mean began before all power feeding the cryo-chamber cut out completely.

Outside, the lights died.

Praetor was turning, heading back into the chamber when he saw the Apothecary recoil from the cryo-tank, a bolt of arc-lightning ripping him off his feet. It had come from the stasis tank. His cry echoed around the chamber as he spun and lay prone on the ground.

Another lashed out like a whip, ripples of psychic power coursing over the cryo-tank’s surface in agitated waves. Nu’mean staggered as the bolt struck him but stayed standing, protected by his Crux Terminatus.

‘Get back!’ Nu’mean, not wishing to test the limits of his personal ward again, seized Emek by the ankle and proceeded to drag him bodily across the floor.

‘Storm bolters!’ yelled Praetor.

Tsu’gan stepped inside and unleashed a salvo. The explosive shells stopped a few centimetres from the frozen cryo-vessel, detonating harmlessly in mid-air. The impacts blossomed outwards, as if striking some kind of miniature void field, and dissipated into nothing.

It saved Nu’mean from another bolt of arc-lightning as he almost threw Emek through the doorway and then barrelled out of the chamber himself. The bulkhead slammed shut after him, Praetor on hand to seal it.

At least the doors were still working, evidently controlled by a different part of the vessel’s internal power grid.

Even with the chamber sealed, with the power still out Tsu’gan could feel the hallucinations returning. Though his logical mind told him they were not real, his senses railed against it. They told him he could smell copper, see shadows coalescing into foes in the long corridor ahead of them, taste the bitter tang of sulphur stinging his palate.

‘Be strong of mind, brothers,’ Praetor told them, even as Nu’mean was attending to Emek.

‘He is badly wounded,’ he said, all the old guilt and sense of impotence rushing back in a flood.

A large crack parted the Apothecary’s plastron. Blood was welling within it. There were scorch marks too, a long gash of jagged black infecting the armour like a wound itself. Part of Emek’s helmet was broken away. An eye awash with crimson blinked back tears of blood.

‘I am wounded…’ he rasped. He tried to look around but found he could not. Vital fluids bubbled in his throat and he could hear the slow rhythm of his secondary heart kicking as it attempted to cope with the trauma.

Tsu’gan looked on and found his anger towards the Apothecary had fled, to be replaced by concern. He was his brother and now, faced with seeing his potential death, realised he had acted ignobly towards the Apothecary. It was not behaviour worthy of a Salamander of Vulkan. Once tied to the Ignean Emek might have been, but he was not the one that Tsu’gan hated.

‘He’s dying,’ he uttered.

Nu’mean ignored him. ‘We must restore power to the cryo-chamber,’ he told Praetor. ‘I won’t leave this unfinished.’

Praetor nodded. The Firedrakes were clustering the corridor. They’d set up a defensive perimeter, responding to their conditioned training routines. If there was one thing Salamanders knew how to do, and do well, it was hold ground.

‘Stay here,’ he said, ‘and be ready to move in again on my signal. I have the schemata of the ship. I’ll take my squad and find the central power room.’ He glowered meaningfully. ‘Then I’ll find whoever shut it off and do the same to them. Bloodily.’

‘In Vulkan’s name, brother,’ said Nu’mean as they departed.

‘We’ll need his will in this,’ was Praetor’s response as he clanked away down the corridor. A short distance, and a junction led them away from the medical deck and deeper into the Protean’s cold heart.

Tsu’gan scanned the shadows warily. This part of the Protean was largely untouched and possessed an eerie quality, as if all life in its empty corridors had simply ceased. No struggle, no damage, just absence.

‘I’m detecting no signs of ’stealer habitation,’ reported Brother Vo’kar. He partnered Tsu’gan as they advanced towards the central power room under Praetor’s instruction.

‘Keep a wary eye,’ the sergeant advised. Behind them, Hrydor swept the darkness with his assault cannon. The last member of the squad, Brother Invictese, was a half-pace ahead of him. ‘It’s not the xenos we face here,’ Praetor concluded.

Distance from the cryo-chamber helped. The mission chrono told the Firedrakes they had left Nu’mean’s squad exactly thirty-three minutes ago. Tsu’gan estimated with some accuracy that they had travelled several hundred metres in that time. But despite the distance, he still felt the same old feelings from before tugging at his resolve.

A shadow darted ahead of them but before he had aimed his storm bolter it disappeared, seemingly into smoke. Copper was heavy on the recycled air. Psychic fabrication or real, Tsu’gan had no way of telling. He saw Praetor eyeing the dark, too, finding apparitions in the deepest alcoves before deliberately looking away.

Hrydor’s heart rate and respiratory functions relayed on Tsu’gan’s tactical display were elevated.

Praetor had seen them too.

‘Gird yourselves, brothers.’ He didn’t single any one of them out, but Tsu’gan knew to whom he was really speaking. ‘Our minds are our enemies. Rely on your instincts. Use your mental conditioning routines to find balance. We were born in Vulkan’s forge. We all crossed the gate of fire and were tested before the proving-forge. Our mettle is unbendable, as Firedrakes it must be so. Remember that.’

A series of solemn affirmations answered the brother-sergeant but all felt the uneasiness in the atmosphere, like a serpent crawling beneath the skin. Hrydor gave his last of all.

So far, they had encountered no resistance. According to the schemata, the central power room was not much further.

But, even as his halo-lamps strafed the dark, Tsu’gan couldn’t assuage the uneasy feeling in his gut.

At the bulkhead door to the cryo-chamber, Nu’mean waited impatiently.

Emek was slumped against the back wall, still bleeding. He was conscious but not entirely lucid. He’d used whatever medical unguents and salves he had in his narthecium kit to do what he could. His brothers, under his faltering instruction, had done their best to aid him. He was in Vulkan’s hands now. Either he would endure the anvil and emerge reforged or he would break against it. In any event, Nu’mean had taken the vial in its brass partial outer casing and mag-locked it to his vambrace. Though small, the device was not so delicate that he couldn’t apply the serum himself. It would be difficult and better handled by an Apothecary but that option was no longer viable.

‘Sergeant Nu’mean.’ The comm-feed address came from further up the long corridor, where Brothers Mercurion and Gun’dar guarded the junction Praetor and his squad had taken to reach the central power room.

‘Report, brother.’

‘Contacts on my scanners. Closing quickly.’

Nu’mean went to his own bio-scanner, one of the concomitant systems of his Terminator armour.

Several heat traces, distant but very real, were approaching. He deduced their origin from a section of the ship that had previously been sealed.

‘Maintain defensive cordon,’ he said to Brothers Kohlogh and Ve’kyt beside him.

‘Hold position. Fall back only on my order,’ he told the advance line.

Something is wrong, he thought. With the farseer active, he had expected to be assailed with visions and mental tortures by now. He had expected the screams of the dying, to witness the burning faces of the thousands he had condemned to death. But there was nothing, just the nagging sense of something out of kilter.

‘Hold position,’ he repeated and felt his unease growing.

Hrydor whispered something, but not loud enough for Tsu’gan to hear. The Terminators moved in close formation through the final few corridors like the Romani legionnaire formations of old, some of Terra’s battle teachings having permeated Nocturnean culture. Only Hrydor was lagging at the rear.

Several junctions went by, each leading off into another area of the ship, each a darkened recess that needed to be scanned and checked before they could proceed.

Tsu’gan was about to send Praetor a sub-vocal warning about his troubled battle-brother when a moment of revelation struck him. The nagging at the back of his skull, the itch he felt upon his neck and shoulders, the invisible tension that charged the air, he knew it. He’d felt it before. Watchers. Watchers in the shadows.

Something scuttled almost imperceptibly through the darkness. Tsu’gan got the impression that the shadows and it were one, blended as night on top of night.

The figures he’d dismissed earlier were not hallucinations – they were real. Nor had Praetor witnessed and refuted apparitions in the gloom but something very tangible and very dangerous; dangerous enough to foul the Salamanders’ auto-senses.

Tsu’gan’s warning came too late as something else set its influence against them and fell hardest on Hrydor.

‘I see it!’ he cried out, breaking squad coherency and clanking off back the way they’d come.

‘Grimhildr…’ he waved the imaginary Space Wolf over his shoulder in a bid to follow, ‘the kraken… Bring your axe and bond-brothers. I have it in my sights!’

How long poor Hrydor had been quietly under the farseer’s influence, they’d never know.

Praetor turned and saw him disappearing down one of the other junctions into an unknown part of the ship. ‘Brother!’ he called, but Hrydor was lost to his own version of reality.

Assault cannon fire echoed back to them loudly as he engaged the imaginary beast of the deeps.

Praetor was already moving. ‘After him.’

‘Where is he going?’ asked Tsu’gan.

‘To his death, if this continues. We are not alone here.’

Tsu’gan nodded and followed his sergeant.

The junction Hrydor had chosen led to a long corridor. He was still visible as the others reached it, firing bursts from his assault cannon before stomping ahead again.

‘I can clip him, maybe take a piston out in his leg.’ Tsu’gan was already taking aim. ‘It will slow him.’

Praetor shook his head.

The scuttling sound returned. They all heard it this time, as well as a high-pitched keening as if issued by a flock of mechanised birds.

‘Name of Vulkan…’ The sergeant scowled, trying to track the source of the raucous noise as a bulkhead door slammed down to impede them. They lost sight of Hrydor, though Tsu’gan swore he noticed the shadows closing in on him just before they did, as if detaching from the very walls.

‘Hold the junction,’ Praetor told Invictese and Vo’kar. They assumed defensive firing positions at once. He turned to Tsu’gan. ‘Get it down, now!’

Tsu’gan plunged his chainfist into the metal and cascading sparks lit the corridor.

It took several minutes to tear through the bulkhead.

Tsu’gan was the first to see to the other side.

‘Gone,’ he snarled, but then detected blood traces on the grated floor. The corridor had a vaulted ceiling, littered with pipes and narrow vertical ducts. Chains hanging down from the gloom jangled faintly. Praetor and Tsu’gan pulled at the gap in the bulkhead with their hands until it was wide enough to traverse. More precious seconds were lost.

Hurrying now, Praetor and Tsu’gan cleared the corridor in another two minutes. Leaving the others behind and rounding a tight corner, they found Hrydor’s body.

The xenos were coming fast, dozens and dozens of them.

The long corridor afforded a decent fire point for Nu’mean’s squad and the ceiling was solid enough that they didn’t have to worry about ambuscade from above.

If the genestealers came from the Protean’s aft they could hold them off.

A few metres from the cryo-chamber’s door was the cross-junction bleeding left and right. Nu’mean had positioned himself, Emek and the other two Firedrakes in his squad here.

To the left was the chamber housing the bank of saviour pods. An incursion from that direction was unlikely. But if the xenos came from the right-hand corridor at the same time as the aft-facing one, the fight would likely be a lot shorter. Already, he could hear them: chittering, scuttling, loping. It would not be long.

Approximately fifty metres separated them and Brothers Mercurion and Gun’dar at the next junction. Another hundred or so and the long corridor terminated in a patch of darkness their halo-lamps were too far away to penetrate.

‘Wait until you have a target then lay suppressing fire to slow their ranks.’ Nu’mean ordered down the comm-feed. ‘Let’s see if we can clog the way ahead with xenos corpses, brothers.’

A belligerent ‘affirmative’ delivered in synch told him he’d been heard and that the Firedrakes were making their final oaths.

The door behind him, where his prey partially slumbered, felt hot against Nu’mean’s back.

All of this for vengeance.

Nu’mean crushed his doubt in a clenched fist.

No price is too steep.

‘Here they come!’ The corridor ahead was suddenly lit by the muzzle flare of crashing storm bolters.

Fleetingly, through the press of bodies and gunfire, Nu’mean saw the rabid xenos exploding.

They were relentless. Even at a distance, he noticed a fervent glow in their eyes. It gave the beasts aggression and awareness. Nu’mean realised then why they’d barely felt the farseer’s psychic emanations. He was part of the ship and that extended to the denizens aboard. The eldar was channelling his power through the ’stealers, animating and guiding them like a substitute Hive Mind.

The bolter fire from Gun’dar and Mercurion lasted another few seconds before they began to fall back. They loosed in sporadic bursts after that, one then the other, overlapping their salvos.

Nu’mean could barely discern whole alien bodies, such was the gore and dismemberment wrought by the guns.

‘Running low,’ said Mercurion.

‘Aye, brother,’ Gun’dar replied.

Nu’mean started forwards, but discipline took hold and he stopped. He went to the comm-feed instead.

‘Fall back. Rejoin the line, brothers.’ There was an urgency to the sergeant’s tone that suggested he knew what was coming.

Genestealers were everywhere, clambering over the dead, clawing their way over wall, floor and ceiling.

Such fury…

‘Vulkan’s fire beats–’ Mercurion began. He was snapping a fresh load in his storm bolter, Gun’dar covering him, when a ’stealer got close enough to tear off half of his helmet and face. Brother Mercurion staggered, sputtering a few more rounds from his storm bolter, before another xenos punched a hole through his chest. A third leapt on his back. Then they engulfed him and a Firedrake was lost to the swarm.

‘Rejoin the line! Rejoin the line!’ But Nu’mean’s imploring was for nothing.

Gun’dar fell moments later. Surrounded, he could not hope to hold out for long. His storm bolter lit up the corridor for another six seconds before it fell silent.

Nu’mean held on to his anger, prevented it from sending him crashing into the onrushing ’stealers to his doom and vainglory.

‘Brother Kohlogh…’

The Firedrake took a step forwards to brandish his heavy flamer.

Nu’mean’s voice was hollow. ‘Burn it.’

Hrydor had been hacked apart. Chain-toothed weapons left scars across his armour. The cuts were heaviest at the weaker joints. His Terminator suit was badly rent and scorch marks suggested close-ranged plasma. Sections of partially dissolved ceramite, which left gaping crevices in Hrydor’s sundered flesh, had been made by a melta gun. His assailants had set upon him from all sides and took him apart, piece by piece. Blood painted a grisly scene that glowed a deep, visceral red in the starkness of the halo-lamps.

A solitary figure stood mockingly at the end of the next corridor, poised at the junction. It was clad in archaic power armour, dark like twilight or deeper; it was hard to tell precisely. A battle-helm, morphed into the graven visage of some howling daemon, its crude mouth grille locked in a silent scream, looked stretched, almost avian, as did its clawed feet and gauntlets. Tilting its head on one side, the hideous thing clicked. The motion was strange, slightly syncopated, and its clawed foot grated the metal in time.

Tsu’gan’s mouth curled into a snarl behind his helm. ‘Raptor…’

Then he barrelled headlong down the corridor, storm bolter crashing.

Screeching in bird-like, mechanised monotone, the Raptor leapt into the air, the densely throated thrusters on its back coughing out plumes of smoke and fire to lift it.

Tsu’gan cursed. He missed.

Above them, the chains and pipes clanked noisily. Tsu’gan fired into the darkness of the vaulted ceiling where he thought he’d detected movement.

Cruel laughter, like a vulture’s cawing and impossible to pinpoint, greeted his failure. Then came another blast of bird-like screeching, synthesised through a vox-grille mouth.

‘Chaos Traitors!’ he snarled to Praetor, scything chain links with another salvo and sending them cascading like iron rain onto his armour.

His sergeant’s reply was cut off by the bulkhead door slamming down between them. He’d been caught. Tsu’gan spat another curse as several armoured figures, the first Raptor’s kin, descended from above on bladed wings. Freefalling, they seemed to melt out of the shadows, and only engaged their jump packs to arrest their flight at the last moment.

Ozone from the melta stink and the reek of blood-laced, oiled chainteeth filled the air. The blades were buzzing already, growling for prey.

‘You’ll not kill me so easily, hellspawn,’ he vowed, trying to shut off the other sensations pressing at the edge of conscious thought, the copper stink, the veil of sulphur…

These foes were real. Night Lords – terror-mongers and cowards, unworthy of the name Space Marine, even when they’d been loyal to the Throne.

Raptors were pack-hunters and he had sprung their trap. The blades came in quick. Tsu’gan barely had time to see, let alone defend them.

It took Praetor three blows from his thunder hammer to batter the bulkhead door down and send it screeching from its moorings into the corridor at speed. Like most sons of Vulkan, his strength was prodigious, but even amongst the Fire-born Praetor had a reputation for incredible feats. Brought on by fury and determination, this one ranked amongst the toughest.

The closest Raptor didn’t see it coming. Six thousand kilograms of half-metre-thick metal took the renegade down, slamming into its torso and nearly cutting it in two. A death rattle escaped from its skulled faceplate before it died.

Tsu’gan saw the improvised missile in time, twisting aside, but the flying bulkhead still grazed the front of his plastron and left a groove in the ceramite. The rents in his armour from the chainblades were light. The Firedrake took advantage of his assailants’ shock, albeit a few seconds in duration, to gut one at close range with a burst of his storm bolter.

Crushing the Raptor’s pauldron in his fist, he rammed the muzzle hard into its stomach and pulled the trigger. Tsu’gan was throwing the body aside as another tried to leap into the air to regroup. It got so far, arching its body to draw a bead with its plasma gun, when Tsu’gan reached out and seized its ankle. With barely a portion of his strength, he sent the Traitor smashing to the deck. It slid, claws scratching at the deck for purchase, in front of Praetor. The sergeant severed the creature’s head with the edge of his storm shield.

‘Feel Vulkan’s wrath!’ he bellowed, battering another Raptor aside that sprang over to engage him.

Tsu’gan was free of the flock and laid about him with controlled bursts. Warning icons blazed across his retinal display, intense thermal temperature spikes. The meltagunner weaved out of his initial salvo, firing small bursts of its jump pack to stay aloft, before Praetor blindsided it and slammed the Raptor into the wall.

By now, Vo’kar and Invictese had been summoned from the strongpoint and were placing careful blasts into the melee from the end of the corridor.

Like weird, metal dolls, the Raptors jerked and shuddered as they died.

Facing almost a full Terminator squad, they couldn’t hope to win.

What had begun as a cynical ambush had turned into a bitter and desperate defeat before the might of the Firedrakes.

Barely four of the Traitors remained. The Salamanders were in the ascendancy. Two, blazing contrails from their jump packs, made for the vaulted roof. Combined storm bolter fire – so concentrated, so close – shredded their armour like tin.

A third lashed out at Praetor, but the chainblade it wielded ran afoul of the sergeant’s sturdy armour. Broken metal teeth rattled the deck, followed swiftly by the Raptor’s sundered corpse.

Tsu’gan came face-to-face with the lone survivor, their leader and the one who wore the daemon’s distended face. It angled its head, fibre bundle cabling at its neck sparked as its body spasmed. Then the wretched, avian creature screeched at him. The goad forced Tsu’gan to swing – he wanted to feel its flesh and bone churning against his chainfist – but the Raptor leader had banked on this and avoided the blow, snatching up the fallen meltagun instead.

It looked like it was about to turn the weapon against the Firedrake before the creature boosted its jump jets and soared into the vaulted ceiling, burning through metal sheeting as it went, fashioning an escape route. Tsu’gan’s bulk blocked a clear shot for the others and storm bolter rounds tore up the pipes above harmlessly before the Firedrakes were alone again.

‘Night Lords,’ spat Tsu’gan. ‘Craven whelps and molesters. What are they doing aboard the Protean?’

Praetor couldn’t answer. He was listening to the comm-feed.

‘Nu’mean is in trouble,’ he said when he was done. ‘The Traitors will have to wait–’

Tsu’gan bristled. ‘Hrydor’s vengeance!’

‘Will have to wait,’ Praetor repeated firmly. ‘Our brothers, those who yet live and breathe, need us to breach the central power room now.’

They were about to retrace their steps when an explosion, loud enough to resonate through Tsu’gan’s armour, rocked the corridor. Metal debris fell in thick chunks. Dust and fire billowed out ahead of them in a blackened plume.

Praetor glared through the smoke and carnage, filtering out the interference from the explosion’s aftermath. He muttered something. The rest of the squad had assumed battle positions, expecting another ambush. The sergeant consulted the scanner of his retinal display. He did this several times before he swore, an old Nocturnean curse.

‘Brother-sergeant?’ asked Vo’kar.

‘Our way back is closed.’

‘Lord?’

Praetor rounded on him, his fury affecting the burning embers in his eyes and setting them ablaze.

‘We cannot proceed, brother! The Traitors have collapsed it. And unless we find another route to the central power chamber, Nu’mean and his squad are dead!’

The respite would not last. The cleansing fire of Brother Kohlogh’s heavy flamer had done its work well. Ashen genestealer bodies littered the corridor ahead, but more were coming, many more.

Nu’mean had his ear to the comm-feed, listening to Praetor’s grim report. The conversation ran in several one-sided bursts.

‘I understand, brother.’

‘Do not attempt it. Cutting through will take too long.’

‘Another route? There is none that will get you here fast enough.’

‘You must. I can get Brother Emek off the hulk. His life is the only one you can save now.’

‘In Vulkan’s name,’ he echoed the last transmission under his breath after he’d cut the feed.

He consulted the bio-scanner on his retinal display, looked at the lethal vial of toxin mag-locked to his armour. His enemy was within metres. He should be able to kill it. In any other circumstance, a sergeant of the Firedrakes should have been able to kill it.

The noises from the gloom ahead were getting louder.

It would be soon.

Act!

Nu’mean addressed Brother Ve’kyt. ‘Get the Apothecary to the saviour pods. Ensure he is on his way and return here to the line. I will need you and Brother Kohlogh before the end.’

It was a risk, putting Emek in one of the pods, which was not guaranteed to function. Nor was his rescue assured once he was adrift in the void of space. And with his injuries…This was the only choice. Nu’mean knew what was expected.

Ve’kyt had gone, taking the groggy, half-comatose Apothecary with him.

Nu’mean rested his gauntlet on Kohlogh’s shoulder plate.

‘None shall pass, brother.’

Kohlogh nodded. The ’stealers sounded closer than ever. Vague shapes could be seen in the darkness ahead.

Nu’mean turned and approached the bulkhead door. The activation codes were on his lips.

‘Seal it behind me,’ he said quietly. ‘Do not open it again. Whatever happens.’

‘In Vulkan’s name,’ Kohlogh intoned.

‘Aye for Vulkan…’ Nu’mean answered, the chittering of the approaching beasts rising to a crescendo as he opened the door and entered the cryo-chamber.

He was barely across the threshold, the door sealing shut behind him, when the arc-lightning struck. It was a dull pain at first, intensifying into something much more invasive and burning as Nu’mean took each agonising step.

His Crux Terminatus gave him some protection, but it was his Salamanders tenacity that kept him moving across the fog-shrouded floor.

Like white-hot fingers running across his armour, the psychic lightning probed for flesh and for weakness. Slowly, the joints in Nu’mean’s once-impervious suit were eased apart.

Above the crack of energy, he heard the battle outside. Bolter fire and flamer bursts mingled with the war cries of his brothers and the shrieking of the xenos. It was a fitting requiem to their last stand in this hellish place. This was not the ship of his memory. This abomination was the Protean no longer. Only wraiths lingered here, best forgotten. Nu’mean had learned that too late, but now he would at least finish his mission.

Merely steps away from the cryo-tank, he saw the farseer slumbering, as serene as he had ever been. To look upon the alien, one would not know of the turmoil in his mind as he fought the invader that sought to kill him.

But kill you I will, Nu’mean vowed.

The horrors and cerebral tortures returned when the psychic lightning failed. Faces, rotten and withered by decay, glared at him with accusing eyes. Suddenly, there were hundreds, clogging the path to the cryo-tank, their zombified talons clawing at the Firedrake sergeant. Serfs and crewmen, brander-priests and even fellow Space Marines held Nu’mean at bay with their anger and his guilt.

Nu’mean gritted his teeth. The pain in his body was incredible, as if his nerve-endings were being stripped and immolated, one by one. He couldn’t see through the throng but felt the console. It was still primed for the lethal serum’s delivery.

The farseer redoubled his efforts, sending wave after wave of arc-lightning cracking into the Salamander.

Nu’mean screamed with every blast, the flesh peeling from his bones. His gauntlets were on fire but he saw his purpose clear enough through the bloody haze.

‘I am your death…’ he rasped, and slammed the vial into the receptor ring. The toxin emptied quickly, feeding into the mechanism like an eager parasite. At once, the farseer convulsed. The tremors looked incongruous when matched against the calmness of his expression. In a few seconds he became still.

The battle beyond the door had fallen silent long ago. The genestealers couldn’t get through, reduced to scratching the dense plating with their claws until they became bored and moved on.

Nu’mean was fading. Somewhere deep down he heard the clanging of the forge, of the anvil at the hammer’s touch.

I will be there soon, he thought. I will be joining you all soon, my brothers.

Tsu’gan nursed bitter wounds, as he stood silently harnessed in the Implacable’s Chamber Sanctuarine.

The mood was maudlin in the troop hold. No fewer than six Firedrakes had died trying to wreak century-old retribution. Somehow, the scales did not feel balanced.

He craved the burning of the solitorium, for the heat to purge the pain and impotent rage he harboured. The voice of Volkane, their pilot, interrupted his dark thoughts.

After escaping the wreckage of the Protean and returning to the Glorion’s hangar deck via another route, they had attempted to re-establish communication with Nu’mean. It was to no avail. Apothecary Emek might yet have lived, however, and so they’d trawled the immediate area of space from where his saviour pod had been ejected.

Now, two hours later, they’d found him.

‘Emergency ident-rune matches the Protean’s signature.’ Brother Volkane’s voice was grainy through the comm-link.

Praetor spoke into the bulkhead’s receiver unit.

‘Conduct bio-scan and bring us in close.’

There was a pause of almost a minute before Volkane replied.

‘Life readings affirmative.’

Tsu’gan saw Praetor shut his eyes briefly. It was as if a weight had lifted from his back.

‘How long, brother?’ he asked the gunship pilot.

‘Approximately three minutes and seventeen seconds, my lord.’

‘Bring our brother back to us, Volkane. Bring him back to the forge.’

‘In Vulkan’s name.’

‘In Vulkan’s name,’ Praetor repeated, cutting the link. His eyes met with Tsu’gan’s as he turned. A slight nod from the sergeant told the Firedrake all he needed to know.

Emek, at least, had lived. After being recovered from the saviour pod, he was laid prone in a medi-casket, strapped down to the hold floor like a piece of cargo. The Apothecary’s face and much of his left side was badly damaged. Tsu’gan regretted his earlier remark to Emek about him one day being broken. He had not intended for it to be prophecy.

Praetor watched him keenly. The sergeant’s eyes blazed without his helmet on. They matched the fury of Tsu’gan’s own.

So much death in the name of something so futile and transient… Vengeance was not a filling meal; it left you cold and empty. Yet, Tsu’gan’s desire for it still burned like an all-consuming flame. At that moment, it burned within them all.

They had given a name to their pain. Tsu’gan knew that name without the need for it to be spoken.

Night Lords.